Baka-Raptor’s Highlight Mixtape

Stand-up comedy is hard. Stand-up comedy in front of literally six people in Milwaukee is downright sadistic. But hey, props to Anime Milwaukee for at least giving me a shot. Now that I have a badass highlight mixtape to send around, it’s only a matter of time before Otakon comes calling.

18 minutes of crickets, tumbleweeds, and awkward silence were cut out

This was good, Baka-Raptor. Speaking with more conviction, moving around more, and fluctuating your tone would all make your stage presence more engaging. Standing does suck, I suggest you bring a stool next time. You should do a set at Youmacon, man.

Yeah, it really would’ve helped if I’d recorded myself rehearsing. I spent pretty much all my practice time trying to get my jokes in order and finish under the time limit. I also should’ve practiced holding the mic and the clicker at the same time. It was unexpectedly discombobulating.

Hey, I’d do Youmacon, if for no other reason than to write up some Detroit Metal City jokes.

Here’s the deal: I was scheduled for a half-hour panel, so I wrote about a half hour’s worth of material. Then I was told I only had 25 minutes, as there’s a 5 minute setup period between panels. In addition, when it was time for my panel to start, only 3 people were in the audience, so I waited a few more minutes until 3 more people walked in. (A few more wandered in by the end, probably 10-15 at that point.) Basically, I was trying to squeeze 30 minutes of material into 20 minutes and ended up rushing. Next time I’ll just plan for a solid 15 minutes flat.

That’s how it works, gotta start strong, end strong, and leave all the filler jokes in the middle.

This 5 minutes was pretty decent. The 15 minutes of terrible was edited out. I’ve done stand-up once before, first year of college, and was pretty terrible back then. Builds character.

I was planning to skip that joke if I didn’t have an audience volunteer. Then I saw a Naruto cosplayer walk in and thought I hit the jackpot! Geez, what a tease.

A bunch of my jokes fell flat because nobody in the audience saw the anime I was talking about. This is why you can’t do stand-up in front of six people—EVEN THE NARUTO JOKES DON’T WORK! A lot of the panels in general were poorly attended. Panel before me canceled because not enough people showed up. Panel after me had three people. Kinda surprising there were so few people given that I spent an hour and a half in the pre-reg line.

Ah, the prehistoric classics.
A little too classic in some cases though, don’t you think? At least, that’s what my biggest worry would be; did you get the impression that some of the jokes would be a little passé? Sort of hard to tell with that sample size, I’ll admit…but I’m cringing at it not necessarily because it’s bad, but because I implicitly know I couldn’t get a better reaction with the same material.
Only, I don’t know which reason is more significant.

Here’s how other anime con stand-up comedians tackle the issue: they only make jokes about Pokemon, Doctor Who, and non-specific geekdom. No jokes about any specific anime. Perhaps I gave the audience too much credit, but I don’t regret at least giving them some. Given a larger audience, I’d take the same approach.